Just for Fun

I have been rummaging in the attic for some light-hearteditems to provide a little light relief from the weightier content of the website.

&quot A Day in the Life......." was written at a time when life was a little hectic as I not only had a large Beardie family and two Irish Wolfhounds as well but I was also sharing a home with my mother and her family of Maltese.Puzzled by the title? In my early showing days, Beardie numbers were too small to warrant specialist shows and we relied on the various Collie Clubs, all of which included Beardie classes at their shows. Many shows also had classes for "Any Variety Collie, Rough, Smooth or Bearded" and it was quite usual to distinguish the exhibitors by referring to them as "Rough breeders", "Smooth people" and, of course......"the Bearded ladies".

A Day in the Life of a Bearded Lady

(First published in 'The Bearded News', November 1974)

5.30am Woken by combined efforts of torrential rain on roof and merry-making puppies under window. Attempt to leap out of bed thwarted by wall-to-wall Beardies.

&11.45am: Encourage pups to ford fast-flowing river now passing back door. Make way to only patch of garden still above water. Try daily persuade-myself-to-sell-another-puppy routine. Do I really need four from one litter? Reason fails. Try to visualise one of them leaving home. Unthinkable. Abandon attempt. Find tea-towel trodden into mud - so that's what happened to it.

Afternoon : Set out for second walk with Beardies still wet from first. Fields under water. Great fun. Clara, Bluebell, and Bretta dive-bomb each other. Heavily-pregnant Belle careers across lake and skids into fence. Wellies leak. Specs abandoned as nothing dry left to wipe them on. Funny how one can recognise each Beardie just by its movement - glad they don't go too far away! Old ladies try to roll themselves dry on last remaining inch of grass - let's go home.

4.30pm: Spread more newspaper on floor. Cuddle puppies. Mix up binful of meat and meal, dole it into a dozen bowls. Balancing half-a-dozen bowls, try to squeeze through kitchen door without puppies. Fail, fall over Angela, drop bowls all over two Wolfhounds waiting hopefully in hall. Back to cutting board.

Later.......Discover Angel and smallest Maltese shut in lavatory - patiently waiting to be let out - why do they go in there? Notice Belle has been rummaging in the bathroom again; retrieve sponge and flannels from stairs, step into water bowl on landing.

11pm : Find armchairs and settee all occupied; tear up Bearded News effort. Decide to sneak up to bed to beat the rush.

( First published in the SCBCC magazine "Beardie Times" in Autumn 1984 )

The story so far: The Brambledale Beardies, with accompanying flocks and herds and attendant human, are happily established in their new home at Llwyncelyn Uchaf , where they all enjoy an idyllic existence.

Now read on.........

Monday : The peace is shattered by the arrival of four villainous carrion crows who massacre a large number of Silkies, leaving the gutted corpses spread-eagled on the yard amid drifts of downy feathers. Principles of not disturbing balance of nature etc are questioned, a plan is drawn up and neighbour with shotgun is summoned to assist.

Later : Scene as before, gun barrel through window etc. Enter mother crow accompanied by both offspring clamouring to be fed. Close-knit trio presents fleeting opportunity for three-in-one shot before being totally eclipsed by cow trundling across yard and pausing to admire view. Lika, unable to bear fingers-in-ears suspense, has climbed out of bathroom window and now trots across yard to talk to cow. Neighbour suffers apoplexy and has to be revived with home-made- wine, which renders him incapable of driving home, let alone aiming gun.

Thursday : Enter me, bearing fiendishly simple crow-trapping device, comprising mesh cage with lift-up flap in top. Set this up in yard with half-a-dozen eggs as bait ( crows having already demonstrated partiality to eggs by stealing several hatching clutches ). Prop open door with stick and arrange trip -wire in front of eggs. Retire to kitchen to watch. Enter Grace Beardie; strolls over to inspect cage. Grace, with a considerable number of egg-stealing convictions on her record ( she has perfected the delicate art of of removing eggs from under a hen without disturbing the sitter), quickly works out method of entry and pokes head through cage door, dislodges stick......and brings door down on head...... Bring Grace into house, reset trap, back to window........

Enter two Silkie hens, gossiping pleasantly together as they scratch about - until they spot the eggs. HORROR, some careless bird has left her eggs out in the open! Someone must sit on them......they are still anxiously trying to solve the problem, tut-tutting over the irresponsibility of the pullets of today when Young Goat arrives on the scene. Insatiably curious, he examines trap, bounces on top of it a few times - and then spots the open door. To his caprine mind, however, the attraction is not in the eggs but in the stick which props open the door. Young Goat eats stick, door drops, I swear, and crows, no doubt, watch from wood and laugh loudly.

I wrote the following item in 1974 . It wasfirst published in "The Bearded News"in November 1974 and reprinted in the same magazine in November 1990.

Historical Notes: Olympia was a London exhibition hall and home of Cruft's. "Tracey Witch of Ware" was a Cocker Spaniel who made history by winning Best in Show at Cruft's twice (I think it was 1948 +1950) .......the sixth Cruft's BIS win for her owner/breeder, Harry Lloyd. W.E.L.K.S. was the first open air show of the year, held amid lovely parkland near Cheltenham and glorious in good weather.......